


And Teardrops Fell Like Rain (Awake, Awake)

by archangelwithashotgun



Series: Wish I Could Dream [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Crying Sam Winchester, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Sam Winchester, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Pre-Slash, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Older Brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 11:59:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13903560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archangelwithashotgun/pseuds/archangelwithashotgun
Summary: In the wake of Sam's dream, Dean calls on some divine intervention.





	And Teardrops Fell Like Rain (Awake, Awake)

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by "The Awakening" by Joseph M. Martin. :)

“Sammy. Talk to me.”

Bloodshot eyes stared through the windshield, numbly focused on the open road ahead illuminated by the Impala’s high-beams, and Sam only shook his head minutely. Dean sighed next to him, and Sam barely registered the motion of his brother swiping a tired hand over his face.

“Sam,” Dean murmured, returning his gaze back onto the road. “What did you see? What did the Jinn show you?”

A soft swallow, lips parted slightly with a dry smack, but Sam still couldn’t speak. Images of Gabriel danced through his mind; he was flooded with flashes of that wonderful golden smile, echoes of joyous laughter, phantom touches of Gabriel’s smooth blonde hair across his fingers, of those thin lips pressed firmly against his own, amber eyes narrowed in delight as they glimmered with mischief, adoration, and  _love_.

Sam sighed shakily, his throat throbbing.

“Sam, you’re scaring me. I know that a Jinn’s magic is nasty business, but I can’t help unless—”

“You can’t help.”

Dean quieted. Sam clenched his jaw tight against the coarseness of his throat, closing his eyes against the pain of how raw, how cracked it felt. Inflamed from sobbing, screaming, crying for what he lost…

“You just, you can’t help me with this, Dean,” Sam whispered.

“The hell I can’t,” Dean huffed, lightly miffed at his brother’s refusal. “I’ve been through this before, Sam, I can help you figure out—”

“You can’t  _help_  me with this,” Sam repeated firmly, his voice breaking mid-sentence. “You  _can’t_.”

“ _I’ve been through this before_ , Sam. How the hell are you gonna tell me that I can’t help you?”

“I know you’ve been hit with Jinn magic before—”

“So, if anyone knows anything of what you’re going through right now, it’s me!”

“—but this isn’t like what you went through!”

“What the hell is it like then?!”

“You won’t understand, you won’t get it, it’s—"

“No,  _no_ ,” Dean cut in harshly, briefly casting a hard look at his brother. “How are you going to tell me that, when I don’t even know what you  _saw_? I mean, damn, I’d like to be able to know what the hell it is that I will or won’t understand, rather than being told flat-out that I won’t be able to handle it!”

“I never said you couldn’t handle it, but that you won’t get it,” Sam shot back, whipping his head up to face Dean; his eyes were bright with anger, and a fresh set of tears that he adamantly held back. “I know you, and you won’t like this.”

“Oh jeez, just—" Dean turned back to the wheel, slapping the rim and curling his fingers tight around it. “What is it that’s so  _bad_? Is it you running away, living independently? Is it living with Jess, getting out of the life,  _what_?”

“It’s Gabriel,” Sam whispered almost inaudibly. He closed his eyes, waiting.

There was a pause.

“… What?”

Sam swallowed once more, and he opened his watering eyes. “It was Gabriel. He was… He was in my Jinn dream.”

“The archangel, the trickster?  _That_  Gabriel?”

“Yes,” Sam breathed, biting back a quake.

“So, so what, he’s actually been alive this whole time and messed with your Jinn dream? He messed with you, is that what—" Dean began, his frown deepening.

“No,” Sam groaned, leaning forward to bury his face in his hands. “No.”

“Then what does he have to do…”

Dean trailed off into silence, and Sam chanced a glance at him. Dean was watching the road, but Sam could see the gears turning in his head, Dean’s puzzled scowl twisting into contemplation. He practically saw the lightbulb flick on over his brother’s head as Dean finally figured it out, his expression growing slack with surprise.

“’Bring him back,’” Dean murmured, blinking as he quoted Sam’s words from the warehouse.

Sam knew the instant Dean recognized the meaning behind his plea, the vague indication of who he had been asking for, who Sam had desperately wanted back, who Sam lost in the haze of Jinn magic. Dean’s eyes flashed, then grew hard, and his jaw muscle jumped in his cheek.

“Jesus  _Christ_ ,” Dean bit out, the words spilling out in a hushed breath.

Sam lifted himself up from his hands, dropping them to his thighs. He watched as his fingers trembled, keeping his gaze averted from Dean.

“Told you, you wouldn’t understand,” Sam muttered.

Dean said nothing.

The next ten or so minutes was spent in tense silence, the purr of the Impala’s engine and Sam’s quivering breaths being the only sources of sound in the night. Sam sniffed, blinking hard as tears latched on to his eyelashes. He took in another breath, swallowing a few times to soothe his aching throat.

“Are you okay?”

Sam flinched at the sudden intrusion of Dean’s voice. “What?”

Dean sighed heavily, and said, “Look, I… Okay, fine. I don’t understand. I don’t get it; I don’t get how or why you somehow got involved enough with Gabriel that your perfect world has him in it. I don’t get it, and I  _don’t_  like it.”

Sam nodded, dropping his chin to his chest with the movement.

“But…” Dean continued, heaving out another sigh. “It’s like I said: I know what it is to have something of a perfect world taken away from you. So… are you okay? Will you be okay?”

Sam turned and stared at his brother for a moment, eyes stinging. Dean didn’t look back at him, but Sam could tell he was waiting patiently for an answer. Clearly, Dean wasn’t happy at all; but in this moment, Sam’s heart, crushing and bleeding and raw as it was, began to feel light as a result of his brother’s concern, and the indication that Dean, for all his anger at the revelation of Gabriel, would worry about Sam’s well-being first.

“I don’t, I don’t know,” Sam admitted thickly, turning back to face the front. “I just know that it hurts. It really  _hurts_.”

Dean gave a small grunt and nodded in his peripheral vision.

A second later, Sam jumped as Dean’s hand clapped down on his own, still curled over his thigh. Dean gave a reassuring squeeze, but surprisingly didn’t let go.

Several more tears trekked unbidden down Sam’s face and he sniffed wetly. He huffed out a half-cough, half-sob and leaned his hand up into Dean’s touch, gratefully taking his brother’s comfort.

Around them, the night remained quiet as they continued down the road to the Bunker.

::

Sam didn’t speak about it. In the weeks that followed, he made no mention of his dream, or of Gabriel. This would have been fine by Dean; he wouldn’t have known exactly what to say to Sam, despite his claims of understanding’s the Jinn’s magic, even if he  _had_  wanted to talk to him about Gabriel. This would have been fine.

But this?

Dean pressed his lips together, watching as Sam tapped his pen on the tabletop, his suddenly glassy eyes slipping up to stare over the top edge of the book he had been perusing, lost in thought.

Dean was used to Sam sulking, brooding, moping around. This was none of those.

It was now two weeks following the Jinn fiasco, and while nothing  _drastic_ had changed… Sam was obviously behaving differently. Sure, in front of Dean, he was eating and drinking as he normally would, functioning well physically. 

But in the mornings, Dean would notice Sam’s eyes, dull and bloodshot, staring blankly into his mug of coffee; they were almost always tinted red, whether by sleep deprivation, or tears, or both.

He would catch Sam in a silent moment, when nothing else was demanding his attention, and listen as his soft breaths hitched.

He would hear Sam in the middle of the night. Sometimes he cried quietly, sometimes he screamed.

One time, Dean walked past Sam’s open bedroom door, and he peeked inside just in time to see Sam’s empty gaze staring at the opposite wall, his arm tossed across the empty space of the mattress beside him.

It scared Dean more than any monster he had ever faced.

Sam was suffering and grieving, and it was killing Dean inside to watch it; however, every time he tried to get Sam to talk about his Jinn dream, Sam would clam up, and Dean would be right back at the beginning.

So he stopped asking, and Sam never spoke about it.

And things weren’t getting any better.

Dean sighed quietly, swiping his phone off the tabletop. He stood up and made his way over to where Sam was sitting, carefully stepping around the table.

“Hey. I’m gonna go out, get something to eat,” Dean announced. “Want anything?”

“Not hungry,” Sam mumbled, hastily dropping his eyes back to the book.

Dean nodded sharply. “Right. I’m getting you a burger.”

He turned and stalked toward the Bunker’s exit before Sam could formulate a token protest. Not that he had, either way; only silence answered Dean as he left the Bunker.

::

“Okay, listen.”

Dean curled his hands into loose fists, anxiously brushing them against the thighs of his pants as he examined the night sky above him. He licked at his lips; this was, by now, somewhat familiar, but he still felt the trickle of embarrassment and unfamiliarity crawling up his spine as he opened his mouth and prayed.

“I know that I’m abusing this by doing it whenever I need something, or whatever,” Dean began, shifting around on his feet, “but I don’t care. I need you to…  _Sam_  needs you to do something. He’s hurting, and he really, really needs Gabriel right now.”

Dean scuffed the ground lightly with his foot, lightly clenching his teeth at the prospect of having Gabriel around once more. But if he was what it took to make Sam smile again…

“You said that you could rebuild him, but you didn’t because that was time you didn’t have.”

Dean swallowed, blinking back at the glimmering stars.

“ _Make_  time. I’m asking you to make time. Sam… Sam needs this. And if anyone deserves to have something or someone to bring him happiness, it’s Sam. Even if it comes from someone like Gabriel.”

The humor fell damp on his tongue, his forced grin dry and trembling with disappointment as the evening wind swept through the parking lot.

“He needs Gabriel. And he needs you to bring him back. So… please?”

Moments passed, but the night was silent.

Dean huffed out a breath, clapping his hands on his thighs.

“Figures,” he whispered, turning toward the Impala.

“I’m around a lot more than you give me credit for, Dean.”

Dean whipped around, hand snapping back toward his waistband to grip at his gun. Slowly, he lowered his hand as the face of Chuck Shurley smiled sheepishly at him, and Dean exhaled sharply.

“Maybe if you bothered to pop in and check on us every so often, I would give you more credit,” Dean bit out.

Chuck’s smile faltered. “Humanity has its flaws, but it also has a type of ingenuity to solve those flaws. I need to that allow to flourish; I don’t have to give you the whole spiel on ‘free will’ again. But I’m here now, checking in.”

Dean nodded. “Are you… Sam, he—"

“I’m aware of what happened to Sam, what he’s going through, and what you’re asking of me,” Chuck cut in gently. “I’ve known for a while.”

There was a beat of silence before Dean scoffed, shaking his head and turning around to pace a few steps away. His jaw trembled lightly, and he clenched his teeth together, hard.

“He loves you, y’know?” Dean finally said, turning around. “I’ve never,  _ever_ , come across a hunter in this life with as much faith as that kid. He  _still_  prays, and he still believes that you and your freakin’ will are gonna help us out in the end. He loves you  _so_  much, believes in you, and I can’t help but notice that you’ve let him down more than you’ve helped him.”

Chuck was quiet, a soft fondness gleaming in his eyes as he watched Dean walk back toward him.

Dean threw his hands out, practically vibrating with angry disbelief. “You  _owe_  it to  _him_. You freakin’  _owe_  this to him, to help him and give him happiness! Give him  _Gabriel_  back, you son of a bitch, you did it for me with Cas, why not Sam? Why wait until  _I_  call you?! He deserves it  _so much more_  than—!”

Tears choked the rest of Dean’s sentence, and his tirade came to an abrupt halt. He swallowed hard, blinking back the heat that gathered at the corners of his eyes, and dropped his arms.  Chuck released a deep breath and stepped forward.

“Dean, do you remember what I told you about the archangels and rebuilding them?” Chuck asked quietly. “I said that it takes time. Time that I didn’t have when I said it initially… but that I have now.”

Chuck stopped right in front of Dean, his smile growing.

“I love Sam, too,” Chuck continued. “Maybe I’m incredibly lousy at showing it… but I do love him, and I want to do everything I can to make him happy. Which is why I started rebuilding Gabriel the moment Sam resurfaced from the Jinn magic and began to pray for Gabriel’s return.”

Dean gave a small jolt of surprise, his eyes widening.

“He’s coming back?” Dean asked. “You’re bringing him back?”

Chuck nodded. “He’s coming back. Soon.”

A small huff of pained relief punched out of Dean, and he ducked his head with a sniff. Chuck clasped a hand around Dean’s shoulder and gave a comforting squeeze. As his composure came back, Dean met Chuck’s gaze once more, a dry grin on his face.

“Did it have to be Gabriel?” Dean asked weakly.

Chuck laughed, shaking his head. “You may have your issues with him, and perhaps rightfully so. Gabriel was never one for holding back on his… character.”

“Right,” Dean rolled his eyes.

A chuckle left the deity, and he briefly averted his gaze from Dean, his expression sinking into contemplation. “But as much as you may dislike him, for all the wrong he did to you and Sam before… Gabriel is, at his raw core, so  _good_. And he is filled with more kindness and love than he knows what to do with anymore. I can tell you with absolute certainty that Sam’s devotion is not one-sided.”

Dean groaned, tilted his head back and closing his eyes. “This is delving into ‘chick-flick’ territory.”

“Nah. It’s just me reassuring an older brother that his younger brother will be okay.”

Dean opened his eyes and looked back at Chuck. He looked amused, and expectant.

“Get to know him,” Chuck said, letting go of Dean’s shoulder. “He may surprise you.”

“Right,” Dean said once more. “And, um, thank you.”

Chuck grinned, nodded, and turned away.

“And if, uh,” Dean called out before Chuck could leave. “If you want to drop in some more, maybe to reign Gabriel in if need be, or seeing him or Cas or something… you can.”

Chuck beamed, and nodded once. “I’ll definitely keep that in mind. Goodbye, Dean.”

In a heartbeat, Chuck vanished, leaving behind a soft caress in the wind, and hopeful anticipation for what was to come.

“Yeah,” Dean whispered, glancing up at the sky. “I’ll see you around.”

He turned back toward his Impala and began to walk, waiting for the inevitable arrival of Gabriel.


End file.
